Optimal Sequence Controller Design for Automotive Body Assembly

In this paper, an approach is proposed for the design of a sequential controller for an automotive body assembly. For this purpose, a state-based object model to describe the operations of car body assembly devices and linear programming model to optimally schedule various operations is proposed. The final controller design is expressed by a sequence and constraint of operation and hierarchy of anterior and posterior operations chart, which are also discussed in this paper. This approach was applied to an automobile assembly system and the effectiveness of the proposed system is demonstrated in a case study.